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Wednesday, December 28, 2016

For the first time ever I get to decide what I want my floors to look like and that is exciting. It's the simple things.. No more yellow hardwood rental floors! It was high on the priority list and one of the first things we tackled before we moved in. Seems like once you've already set up all of your furniture and unpacked it's likely that it just won't happen. So first things first. Based on all my mood boards and the color palette for the renovation I really wanted to go dark. But it's a little scary, you know? You're gonna spend all this money and get it done and you're super committed... but you can't really know how it's going to look until they do it. And if you don't like it... yikes. But I did my planning and research and just had to trust. Spoiler: They turned out amazingly. I love them. And they feel so grown up. Owning a house, man, so much adulting. Small steps, leading us toward a big transformation. Some pics to follow, and a post on painting coming soon.

Friday, December 23, 2016

I'm not religious but I do love the holiday season, it's filled with love and meaning. It's family time, time to be together, enjoy each other's company, put work and routine on pause, cook a large feast of a meal, and shower each other with gifts to show your affections. It's such a lovely and loving time of year. Hope you all enjoy your holidays, and eat very delicious things!! What are you going to make? Sharing our menu here:

Thursday, December 22, 2016

I work on a number of cookbooks a year and the shoots are lots of work but also so fun. Usually longer than a normal editorial or commercial shoot, you really get a chance to explore a visual world and develop a story through the 50+ images. In the same studio with the same team all week, there's definitely a camaraderie, you're all in it together trying to make this manuscript and collection of recipes come to life. I love trying all of the delicious recipes after the shot is finished, I always learn new cooking tips and techniques from the chefs or food stylists, and to start from nothing and at the end of the several days of shooting have a whole collection of images, to have made a whole book come together visually, it's so rewarding. And then it takes a year or two until the book is finally released.

Sometimes the shoot feels like so long ago once you're actually holding the book in your hands! Getting copies of these guys this year is like being reacquainted with old friends. The anticipation is long in the cookbook world. And one really special, fun book that I got to style last summer that came out this year is not a cookbook at all- but a gemstone beauty book! There are more that I styled that came out this year, and there are more that I styled this year that have yet to come out, but these are my favorite books released in 2016 that I had the pleasure of working on. Very proud of them! They're good last minute holiday gifts too if you're still stuck and looking for ideas!

Aaaaand the favorites are:

Around the Fire by Greg Denton and Gaby Quiñónez Denton
Photography by Evan Sung
Argentine grill inspired Portland food is, I think, the slogan of their PDX restaurant OX, and is what the book is all about. It's very hard to choose a favorite recipe when they are all so amazing but I crave the lamb chop, couldn't stop eating the olive oil cake, and was blown away by the salt baked tomatoes. (Bonus emotional points: Working on this book helped me decide to move to Portland.)

Cúrate by Katie Button
Photography by Evan Sung
Legitimate Spanish recipes as made by Button and her husband Felix at Curate, their always packed restaurant in North Carolina. So much amazing eating on this shoot too! Surprisingly it was one of the side dishes that really stole my heart, the crispy white beans with rosemary. The rossejat also changed my life. Killer.

Elemental Energy by Kristin Petrovich
Photography by Alice Gao
This beauty book was so much fun to work on! Själ skincare founder Kristin wrote the modern girl manual for incorporating gemstones into your life and beauty routine. I didn't get to eat a lot of delicious, chef-y food on this shoot, as you can imagine, but I did get to take home some själ products to try and definitely not complaining about that perk.

Friday, December 16, 2016

Put together a little assortment of gift ideas to serve as a guide for inspiration and, in some instances, doubles as a current wish list. I have long admired that Astier lady head incense burner and am in love with John Sheppard's ceramic art object. Instant style, just put them on a shelf or coffee table. I love giving small Pallares Solsona knives as gifts because they're a very unique and useful shape that most home cooks don't already have. The oriental beauty tea is not the cheapest, but it's my favorite daily indulgence when I allow myself a refill. Maybe the tea drinker in your life would also enjoy it. I'm about two clicks away from buying myself this Tracey Tanner pouch (I know, not supposed to be shopping for ourselves!) which would be dedicated to my on board travel kit. Obsessed with handmade candles in natural or sexy tones lately- I find tapers to be such an easy and elegant gift. Equally as obsessed with Little Garage Shop's frozen peach glaze and wouldn't mind drinking that aforementioned tea out of this tumbler. Or, as a set with the Yeild french press they could make a great holiday or housewarming present. Finally, an abstract and organic cushion by some of my favorite Portuguese makers would find itself very at home in my house's post renovation decor scheme, but could also uplift a friend's old sofa or mood.

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Here's the big, overarching plan for our little house. I am so excited about it's potential for transformation. To frame our goals for you all it may be important to preface with: our house is not a great house. What I mean by this is that it's a good house, with good bones, but it's a fairly character-less box built with lower end materials in the 60s. It's not a luxury or historic house, we're not starting with fancy finishes, no tall or vaulted ceilings, no rustic beams, no original glass windows or ornate interior trim, really no architectural flourishes. There's not a lot that's pre-existing to work with but the floor plan and hardwoods were enough for me. It's a great blank canvas. Being a stylist I feel like I know all about dressing things up, and this little house just needs an aesthetic update. Like a tv makeover- a little makeup and a more flattering outfit go a long way.

The idea is to take the house in a modern, clean direction which works with the plain lines the house already has. But, because I love texture, and don't like when modern turns sterile, there will still need to be colors and finishes that infuse a little european glamour into the whole thing. Some soul. Some lush, albeit understated, sophistication. Stone, wood, metal, velvet. I also love my moody touches. The house has great light, so not sure if I will want to paint any interior walls very dark (though I am considering it for the master), but I definitely want to paint the outside black.

It's all going to take time. Some things we'll do ourselves and some we'll need a contractor for. Hopefully a year from now we'll be finished? Or making good progress? Realistically I know that these things take time. So we'll just have to see how it plays out. Can't wait.

Extras:
Picture of the house for reference: here.
Pinterest board for this project: here.

Friday, December 9, 2016

After all of these months of renting it, we are finally getting settled in the studio! There was a bit of a slow down when the custom white shelves I ordered got delayed because of a broken painting part and arrived a month after they were supposed to. But we finally got them up and installed and since taking these photos I have finally fully unpacked the studio. Though it still needs quite a bit of organizing, making progress feels so, so good.

As I unpacked each prop and set it on a shelf in daylight, not in a dark basement, my excitement for their beauty renewed. Geeky, I know. But, a basement is a depressing place to work and they really shine much brighter in an environment like this. It even inspired the name for (spoiler!) the prop rental business that we're going to launch next year.

Welcome!

This blog is where I, Kira, write about working as a prop stylist, every day life stuff (like cooking and home renovations), and, when I'm lucky, my soul replenishing international vacations. Most pictures are taken with my iPhone.